Heading South from Dubrovnik, I was already missing the rhythm of John's ukelele and our spontaneous nonsensical and often inappropriate songs. But my new friend Andrea from Austria was a great travel companion ready to explore a new country. Andrea's involved in a peace studies program where she has been learning about conflicts around the world and the ways that nonviolent resistance has influenced or shaped those conflicts. As the grandson of one World War II B-24 bomber pilot, and another pacifist who refused to fight, I've always been interested in peoples views on war and when, if ever, violence is a justified means of resolving conflict. So Andrea and I argued about the U.S. role in international conflicts (there's not much for me to defend in that respect) and we talked more generally about people's motivation for acts of terrorism around the world.
Montenegro's short coastline offers dramatic cliffs and wild mountains resulting in long hot bus rides winding around every little inlet and bay. Our first destination was Budva where we learned that you can't travel for too long without accidentally coinciding with a major festival or holiday. It turned out that it was Montenegrin Independence day and the beach was littered with tourists, tacky state fair style booths and lots of fireworks. I was on my 7th town in about 8 days so I wasn't exactly up for the party but it was quite a spectacle. Montenegro is booming with visitors and it seems to be the beach destination for many Russians and Serbs. Away from the main drag we found a nice cheap restaurant serving fresh fish and we had our own little independence day celebration. A table of four guys that seemed to be there just to enjoy a drink suddenly stood up, fetched their instruments, and began playing some traditional songs to a lone diner who clapped along and sang every word. That night just a few doors down I fell asleep to the sound of the accordion and the occasional bottle rocket.
The next bus south was a real beater that gathered passengers at every intersection it seemed until no more could squeeze in the door. Our destination for the next night was Ulcinj (yeah I know they just throw that "j" in at the end like some cruel trick...I never did quite figure out how to pronounce it). Granted I only saw two towns in Montenegro but the beach culture was a bit intense for my taste. Everybody seems to want a sandy spot where they are surrounded by a thousand other people with approximately four square feet of their own space. The pop music always seems to be blaring and there's not a sign of shade for miles.
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| Where the moon meets the ocean |
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| Me and Andrea looking South towards Albania |
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| This spot felt like the end of the world |
Luckily Andrea and I were on the same page and we had an itch to walk further in the hopes of finding a deserted piece of coast. After an hour walking past the nude beach and the women's only beach and the cove full of trash with no swimmers and several private beaches, the trail headed inland for a bit and finally popped out on a wide expanse of rough dark rock without a soul in sight. It was like I was seeing Montenegro for the first time in a way, and the quiet of that spot was just wonderful. Back in town the moon was finally full (it was just a sliver when I left my family in Italy) and the people watching in the center of town was superb.
The next morning our bus took us across the border into Albania. I had no idea what to expect because most of the travel books skip this country. It's the poorest country in Europe and the only one with a Muslim majority, depending on how you classify Kosovo. According to some teenagers in Montenegro that couldn't understand why we wanted to go to Albania, once you cross the border someone will try to steal your organs! We took our chances, interested to see how people really lived in a place that is a blank spot in the minds of most outside the Balkans.
A couple hours later we were piling 8 people into a five seat car loaded with stuff. Nico, Coco, Chris and I shrugged our shoulders as if to say "who knows?" and we dodged potholes and horses all the way out of the big city. The three and a half hour drive to Theth crosses a large winding pass (no pavement of course) and the driver was just narrowly missing herds of sheep and donkeys all the way. The crosses at some of the sharper corners were grim reminders of other careless drivers.
I rose at dawn to the sound of a farmers scythe cutting the grass just over the stone wall in the adjoining field. Chris, from Sweden, was getting an early start for his hike over the pass to Kosovo so I joined him walking up the road. The mist was low on the river and the sun was just hitting the tops of the highest peaks above. After Chris's trail split off I continued on where I met an old woman tending her flock of sheep. I think we only had two or three words in common one of which was America, but we talked with our hands and our eyes and we got on just fine. I had my camera so I could show her pictures of Prague and Budapest and my family in Italy which brought a bright smile to her face. And then I took a picture of the two of us which made her laugh and laugh. Like many older people in Theth, Katerina had probably never left the valley, and knowing what I know about the rest of the world, she has a pretty good spot to be. It's a simple life with the water flowing pure and clean and the cows, sheep, goats, chickens and the other plants providing all that's needed to live and to live quite healthy as well. Wars have come and gone in the Balkans but places like Theth have been mostly absent from the action. And someday soon, electricity will flow to this spot and the road will be paved and things will change rapidly. The fact that I was there describing to Katerina in gestures how I flew all the way over the ocean and traveled by bus and car to get to this spot meant the change had already begun in Theth.
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| My new friend Katarina |
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| Wandering |
Back down at our camp, Nico and Coco and I, on our hosts recommendation, set off for the day in search of a place called "The Blue Eye," a spring fed ice cold pool with a mossy gorge dropping a waterfall in from above. It sounded magical and when we finally found it several hours later, it really was. The water was that kind of cold that makes you gasp when you come up for air and cry out in shock. By the time you reach the edge your feet are almost numb and your eyes are wide.
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| The Blue Eye |
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| The potato farmer who's backyard we were swimming in |
In the jungle above, a single stone house and a field of potatoes perched on the hillside. The owner came down to the pool where we swam (his backyard really) and invited us up for something, we weren't quite sure what. Up above he offered us shots of Rocky, the local moonshine made with local plums and other fruits. It's strong stuff and for some reason he poured me twice as much as the others, including himself, so I was floating a bit as we ran down the trail back to our camp. We stopped for another warmer swim in the pot holes of a limestone canyon where it narrowed to a slot, which evoked great memories of other canyon adventures in the sandstone deserts of Utah.
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| We found warmer swimming in the potholes of a limestone canyon further down the valley |
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| A little piece of Utah canyon country (minus the red stone) in Albania |
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| Looking back up toward the jungle valley of the Blue Eye |
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| Kids tending their families goat herd |
With only 15 minutes to go to get back to camp I ran ahead of Coco and Nico with delicious food on my mind. Palin and his family greeted me with wine and watermelon (a treat from the city) but Coco and Nico never showed up. I hiked back twice, once at dusk and again by headlamp after dark but I found no sign of them. That night I went to bed wondering and worried where they were with just the clothes on their back and maybe a little water. At 6 a.m. they returned, waking me up with shouts of joy, looking ragged from their night out.They told me how they followed the wrong river up up and how they scrambled over large boulders with the night coming on. They built a small fire where Nico scorched his shirt trying to dry it and they slept a cold restless sleep curled up around the dying fire. It was a hilarious and joyous moment.
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| Nico and Coco at Breakfast the morning after their unplanned night in the wilderness |
Other highlights from my time in Theth included:
-Being convinced by some local boys to mount their horse only to have one of them immediately whip the horse in the ass with a big stick so it bucked and bucked until I was thrown to the ground which brought waves of laughter and an invitation to try again...I declined.
-Waking up the first two mornings to the sound of the farmer cutting his field with the scythe and then waking on the third morning to see the same farmer standing over me offering a shot of rocky (the local moonshine and the traditional way to start the day)...I accepted.
-Helping two farmers 81 and 84 years old respectively pile a giant haystack. The woman (who wore a tie-died Pokemon shirt) would gather the hay in a pile the size of a small car which she would then strap to her back and carry up a big hill. I would pass the hay up, one pitchfork load at a time to the man who would stamp it down as it grew slowly to a height of 20 feet where he teetered precariously.
-Watching the moon rise over the mountains from our campfire on an island in the river.
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| Helping the neighbors with their giant haystack |
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| I hope I can lift huge loads of hay on my back when I'm 85 |
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| It was the height of the hay harvest during our visit |
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| The field where we camped with our hosts house on the hill in the background |
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| The view towards Kosovo on my solo hike |
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| I tried to climb the mountain in this picture |
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| Our last feast of a dinner with some backpackers from Kosovo |
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| Nico tending the fire |
The only lowlight of my time really was the sickness that took over on my last night (too much rich unpasteurized cheese I think) and stayed with me through the bumpy three and a half hour car ride and for a couple days afterward. But even so I can't wait to go back some day.
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| Goodbye Theth, I'll be back |
Back in the city of Shkodra, Nico, Coco and I caught a bus to Tirana, the capital city of Albania. There we stayed for two nights but I cant say we saw too much of the city. We were in desperate need of a rest with ravaged digestive systems and little energy for sight seeing. Mostly we lay about in our little apartment listening to music and recounting our time in the mountains. But we did venture out a bit and one of the highlights was a brief visit to the Et'hem Bey Mosque in the center of the city. It was such a stark contrast to the innumerable churches that I've visited during my travels. In a religion where any depiction of Allah is blasphemous, the holy space has a completely different feeling. All the imagery was animals, plants, and natural landscapes. The human faces that watch over you in churches were gone and the result was a place with beautiful silence and peace.
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| The view from our apartment in Tirana, the capitol city of Albania |
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| Spying on our neighbor tending his rooftop garden |
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| Street art in Tirana |
Nico had a flight to catch and I had to make it much further south in a hurry so we caught a 14 hour bus from Tirana to Athens...we only stopped twice! The border controls to Greece (which also serves as the border of the European Union) were very strict and slow but in the end we made it to the big dirty swarming anthill that is Athens.
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| Southern Albania from the bus window |
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| The three musketeers on their way to Athens |
I wonder if Athens was the original tourist destination, it certainly has been catering to visitors longer than most places. There was so much that I wanted to see, but not the proper time, money, or energy to see it. What's more, my final night with Nico and Coco was thrown for a loop when, in the middle of their dance lessons for two Greek girls in a central square, Coco realized his bag with his passport and all his money, was gone!! Yes, just one minute unattended on the bench just feet from where I was sitting and the thieves had swept in. It was a stark reminder of how quickly you can find yourself in a royal pickle. Needless to say, there was no finding the valuables.
As an aside: the last I heard, Coco was making progress on a new passport and had spent eight nights in Stigmata square (the place where protesters have been camped outside the parliament building for months in response to the debt crisis) and Nico had safely returned to Argentina.
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| The Acropolis floating |
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| A scene from Stigmata square outside the parliament building where protesters have been camped for months |
The next day, I meant to see some sites but many other little things got in the way and by evening I was sitting on the deck of a large ferry boat steaming out of Athens on my way to the island of Crete. It was a sad goodbye to my South American friends, they taught me much about bartering a good price, not sweating the small stuff and finding laughter and joy at every bend in the road. But I was very ready to slow down and set roots for a short time. My next destination was a volunteer stay at a nature park where I could lend a few hours of work a day in exchange for a tent to sleep in and home-cooked food. That night I drifted off on the deck of the boat watching the moon, now just a slim waning crescent, descend over the water.
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| Self Portrait on the ferry boat heading to Crete |
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